The long-running urban battle to capture the town of Manbij in northern Syria from ISIS has finally come to a close.
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An SDF fighting peers around a corner during battles to take Manbij from ISIS. Image: SDF Press Center
Live Feed: SDF Manbij Offensive
Updates and latest news on the offensive by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to take the strategic town of Manbij from ISIS. US Special Forces as well as Coalition aircraft are assisting in this operation.
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The Battle to Retake Ramadi from ISIS
The city of Ramadi, Iraq was captured by ISIS in May this year. After encroaching on the city from several directions, the militant group managed to rout Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and inflict heavy casualties. In the time since this initial capture however, the Islamic State’s position within the city has become shakier. Following a counter attack by ISF and Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU), the tables have been turned and now it is Iraqi forces which surround Ramadi, and are encroaching from several directions. Currently it is unclear if ISIS still has the ability to move supplies and fighters into or out of the city via the Euphrates River, however it is estimated that between 600-1000 ISIS fighters remain in the urban area.
In the last week, Iraqi forces have announced their intention of recapturing the city in one final push. They have warned civilians to evacuate ISIS-held areas, promising them a security corridor in the south of the city. Reports from civilians still inside however indicate that ISIS is preventing them from leaving, instead preferring to keep them as human shields.
While the ISF and PMU forces have large amounts of equipment at their disposal, including US-built M1 Abrams tanks and backing from Coalition air strikes, they will undoubtedly face stiff resistance. ISIS has reported created vast minefields of IEDs, and similar to their tactics elsewhere, will deploy a large number of suicidal VBIED (vehicle-born IED) counter-attacks.
Syrian Democratic Forces Advance With US Cover
Several major developments happened last month in the Syrian Civil War. While the nascent Russian intervention in support of the Assad regime got most of the media attention, a similarly significant development was happening in North-East Syria. Here, in the Kurdish YPG-controlled area of Rojava, a new coalition of Kurdish and Arab forces -- called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) -- was announced. This coalition is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious group made up of the Kurdish YPG/J, the Syriac Christian MFS, and Muslim Arab groups under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), including Euphrates Volcano and Jaish Al-Thuwar. The Syrian Democratic Forces, as suggested by their name, are committed to a “democratic, inclusive and self-governing Syria”.
While many of these groups have cooperated in the past, the formation of this new entity has been likely brought about by US influence. Wary of Turkish concerns of Kurdish expansion in Northern Syria, the SDF put a new face on any further anti-ISIS advances and gives the US more freedom in its support for these groups. Indeed not long after the announcement of the formation of the SDF, the US announced that it would send up to 50 Special Forces to this region to support the SDF, which is the first official American deployment of ground troops in Syria.
Advance on Al-Hawl
The reason that the US has invested into the creation of and support for the SDF is to aid it in its fight against the Islamic State (ISIS). Effectively blocked by Turkey from attacking ISIS in the town of Jarablus west of Kobane, the SDF has instead turned its attention towards the town of Al-Hawl in the far east of Syria. Over the last few days this medium-sized town has become the objective and the first real test for this new grouping.
Al-Hawl itself sits astride a major roadway connecting ISIS holdings in Syria, including its self-declared capital Ar-Raqqa, with its areas in northern Iraq. As such, capturing this town would be a significant victory in the fight against ISIS. The position of this town and its surroundings can be seen on the map below:
Fighting has been ongoing now for several days. While the town itself has not been captured, the US has announced preliminary success for the operation, taking over 250 square kilometers of ISIS-controlled countryside.
“It was a fairly straightforward, conventional offensive operation, where we estimated … several hundred enemy [fighters] were located in that vicinity. There was a substantial friendly force -- well over 1,000 participated in the offensive part of this operation. And they were able to very deliberately execute the plan that they had made themselves,” said US Army Colonel Steve Warren in a statement to the White House press.
The US also confirmed that fighters in this operation were backed by significant US air assets. These assets include A-10 Warthog ground-attack aircraft and an AC-130H Spectre gunship, both of which carry heavy on-board cannons, as well as bombs and other munitions.
An AC-130 gunship supported SDF operations against ISIS.
Additionally, the US confirmed that these operations were also at least partially supplied by an earlier material airdrop, which was announced last month.
“The Syrian Arab Coalition, or SAC, was able to conduct the assault as part of the Syrian Defense Force, he added, “because we supplied the vetted … SAC with [50 tons of] ammunition on Oct. 12. This is important because [Hawl] is predominantly an Arab area and the SAC is the Arab component of the SDF,” Warren stated.
“We believe that the … 200-plus kilometers of ground that the Syrian-Arab coalition has managed to take, to some extent validates this program. … So I think you will see continued resupply of these forces [to] … reinforce the successes we've already seen.”
YPG role in offensive
One question remains regarding the ongoing offensive against Al-Hawl: to what extent is the YPG/J playing in these operations? While the US is talking up the role of Syrian Arab fighters in this offensive, videos of these operations have shown a large number of Kurdish fighters also taking part. It is likely that the YPG will continue to benefit from the sharing of munitions supplied by further US airdrops in Rojava as well.
The participation of the YPG as part of the SDF is indeed predictable. The group represents the strongest and most numerous military grouping in North-Eastern Syria, and it has years of experience fighting against ISIS. Furthermore, its fighters have worked in close coordination with US airstrikes during the Battle of Kobane, as well as the Tel Abyad offensive.
The US also likely knows (and has no problem with) the involvement of the YPG in these operations. This being said, the Obama Administration relies at least partially on the use of the Turkish Incirlik airbase for its anti-ISIS sorties. Should the US talk up its support for Kurdish groups with ties to the PKK, Turkey would be put in a difficult position and may rescind US use of the base. Furthermore, it would drive a political wedge between the two countries, further complicating a peaceful solution to the Syrian conflict.
Barring any major change to the situation on the ground, we can expect continuing advances by the SDF around Al-Hawl, backed up by continuing US air support. Should this operation prove fully successful, it could provide a model for a future US strategy in the fight against ISIS.
The Fall Of Ramadi: This is what winning looks like
Yesterday, forces from the Islamic State captured Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province in Iraq’s west. The fall of the city had been in many ways a long time coming. There had been several abortive attempts by IS to attack the city, and with each successive attack, they pressed further into the centre of the urban area. This culminated in a final push to take Ramadi, beginning last Friday with the detonation of several SVBIEDs around Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) checkpoints in the city’s centre.
#IS fighter with 9K32 Strela-2 shoulder-fired low-altitude surface-to-air missile (MANPADS): pic.twitter.com/pgohW3GzAq
— Memlik Pasha (@MemlikPasha) September 14, 2014
So what risk do these weapons pose to Coalition aircraft such as the F-18 and the F-22 strike fighters? Very little. These craft fly not just high, but also incredibly fast. This means that throughout the bulk of their flight they will be completely out of the range of ISIS’s AA weapons, and during attack runs, their speed will make them almost impossible to hit. Slower craft such as the Predator or Reaper drones are also not likely to be easily downed, because they fly at loiter altitudes in excess of 7,000m.
The most vulnerable aircraft which the Coalition is using against ISIS is also its most recently deployed. The A10 Warthog was redeployed in a rushed fashion to the region following gains by ISIS in Iraq’s Anbar Province. While this aircraft still generally flies at a high enough altitude to avoid most of ISIS’s weapons, during attack runs, due to its low speed, it is vulnerable, both to MANPADs and also anti-air cannon. It is worth noting however, that this aircraft can also take a severe beating, and can keep flying with an astonishing amount of airframe damage.
Outside of the Coalition, the craft being operated by other enemies of the Islamic State are comparatively more vulnerable to their anti-air weapons. In September this year, the Syrian air force lost an Su-25 jet carrying out airstrikes against the ISIS capital of Raqqa. Later, in October, the Iraqi army reportedly lost two helicopters to MANPADS fired by ISIS during battles around the city of Baiji.
Clearly, ISIS has a desire to down a Coalition jet, however, at this stage they would have to be almost impossibly lucky to down most of the aircraft used in bombing runs. While the A-10 is more vulnerable than the rest, it would still require a fair amount of luck for an inexperienced fighter to down one. In addition, the limited nature of ISIS’s AA weapons, especially its MANPADS, makes the possibility of a downed Coalition aircraft even less likely.
The Myth Of The Khorasan Group
Obama never wanted to go back to Iraq, and he certainly never planned to get deeply involved in Syria. But things rarely go to plan, especially when you are talking about Middle Eastern Geopolitics. As such, now at the end of 2014 we see the United States alongside a second Coalition of the Willing engaged in bombing runs every day in both countries, and plans in increase the small number of boots of the ground. Of course, the crisis caused by the rapid expansion of the ‘Islamic State’ (IS) made such a policy turnaround all but unavoidable. Obama at least had the advantage of facing off against a perfect enemy. The Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL or Da’esh) is a religious Khmer Rouge bent on taking the Middle East back to the 7th century and through its sheer brutality, has made itself almost universally hated. America’s allies, but also, critically its rivals such as Iran and Russia, all have a vested interest in seeing the group destroyed.
But beyond IS, things get very messy, very quickly. So the US had to avoid any ‘target creep’ if it was to escape this new conflict reasonable cleanly. For this reason the strike against the ‘Khorasan Group’ took everybody by surprise.
The Official Line
On September 23, the Coalition engaged on its first series of strike against ISIS in Syria. Except that they didn’t just target ISIS…
Among the series of F-16 bombings and Tomahawk missile strikes in North Eastern Syria, was a group of outliers. As well as hitting the ISIS strongholds of Ar Raqqa and Deir Ez Zour, US missiles also struck Aleppo, a stronghold of more moderate Sunni rebels who were actively engaged in combat against ISIS. In the hours after the attack, it emerged that the US had struck Jabhat Al-Nusra (JAN) an Al-Qaeda aligned group in Syria, who nonetheless were still fighting ISIS.
The official US CENTCOM statement on the attack read:
The United States has also taken action to disrupt the imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests conducted by a network of seasoned [al-Qaeda] veterans—sometimes referred to as the Khorasan Group—who have established a safe haven in Syria to develop external attacks, construct and test improvised explosive devices and recruit Westerners to conduct operations.
This immediately rung alarm bells among those who had been long-time observers of the conflict, namely because nobody it seemed has ever heard of the Khorasan group before. Indeed, while everyone was left scratching their heads wondering who these people were, the repercussions were already being felt among the Syrian Opposition. After one of their own (albeit an Al-Qaeda affiliate) was targeted by the Coalition, rebels burnt US flags and protested their betrayal by the West.
Wolves and Whitewash
In the weeks that followed journalists and security analysts began to delve deeper into what ‘Khorasan’ actually was. It turns out the group was likely targeted not for the fact that it was an imminent threat to the US, but rather because it contained several people high up on the US government’s ‘hit list’ and thus stood as a target of opportunity. These included French-born bomb maker David Drugeon as well as the group’s leader Muhsin al-Fadhli both of whom were experienced Al-Qaeda operatives.
In addition, the claim that ‘Khorasan’ was some kind of independent and highly threatening terrorist group began to unravel. Reporting on the ground and propaganda video analysis established that the Khorasan group was really the “Wolf Group” or “Al-Qaeda Snipers” of Jabhat Al-Nusra, and rather than an independent organisation, were really a small sub-unit of the larger JAN network. Furthermore, the threat they posed to the West was downgraded from imminent and critical, to “within the next few months”.
Clearly, what happened is that the US government made the decision to bomb this Wolf Group of Jabhat Al-Nusra, and then later came up with a way to sell to the public. This strategy ended up in the creation of “Khorasan” a group which never existed in any form beyond the statements of US officials.
The Aftermath
After Jabhat Al-Nusra Wolf Group targets were hit around Aleppo on the 23rd by no less than 6 Tomahawk missile strikes, US government went into overdrive promoting the myth of the ‘Khorasan’ Group, and the fact that it was producing non-metallic bombs which could be used to attack Western targets. There is little evidence beyond vague ‘intelligence’ that this was the case. What there is a lot of evidence for however, was that this group was training crack snipers who had been quite successful in the fight against regime forces in the city.
What’s worse, while their buildings and training HQ were destroyed, all high value targets identified by the US reportedly escaped after forewarning from an unknown party. So what we are left with is a Coalition that is effectively bombing both sides of a war to very little effect, aside from slowly turning even the non-ISIS opposition against them. All the while they are misleading the US public as to the true targets of the strikes. While there is no doubt that the Wolf Group as the US government puts it “were bad guys”, the wider strategic implications of this strike could drive a tactical merger between ISIS and JAN make the Coalition’s overtask much harder. At some point you have to ask what they were thinking…